Posted 10:38 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Sticks and stones may break your bones, but reading Murdoch’s apology will never hurt you

Murdoch apologizes

Ruper Murdoch is about to sell The Times' (No, he isn't) Dynasties - Murdoch;

The Salt of Media Life RIP News of the World: Adelaide -October 1843 – Global Cities - July 2011
Rupert Murdoch's News International empire in London is in crisis. The story, originally broken earlier this week by Vanity Fair, had the added benefit of steering the focus towards Mr Coulson who resigned as NOTW editor in 2007 when his royal reporter and a private investigator were jailed for phone hacking: he was rehabilitated last year by Mr Cameron as the prime ministerial communications director; Mr Coulson resigned early this year as new claims were made. Andy Coulson, the former aide to the Prime Minister, was editor of the News of the World when the newspaper paid police for information..."

Having been jailed in 2007 for hacking phones on behalf of the News of the World, Glenn Mulcaire this week pleaded for understanding. “I knew what we did pushed the limits ethically,” the private investigator told The Guardian. “But, at the time, I didn’t understand that I had broken the law at all.” Revelation piles pressure on Murdoch executive whilst advertisers boycott News of the World as scandal grows.
The focal point is the News of the World — now facing a spreading advertising boycott — and the top executives of its parent companies: Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, and her boss, media potentate Rupert Murdoch

• Gotcha! The News of the World bites the dust. ; Fox News won't touch Murdoch story with a "ten foot turban Durbin [ RIP ; Rupert Murdoch-approved "journalism. 7 -7; ABC of Kremlinology ]
• · Crisis deepens at News of the World as police begin to review all high-profile child murder cases ; The day the prime minister was forced to act on phone hacking In media scandal, British debating how far is too far
• · · Tabloid 'hacked families of war dead' -The families of British soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan could have had their phones hacked by an investigator working for Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, according to reports this morning. Report: Rupert Murdoch's UK paper hacked into London 7/7 bombing victim's phones ; Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator employed by the paper, in the days following the 2005 London bombings will heap further pressure on the title's owner, News International
• · · · Kremlinology with Rupert Murdoch: what do the Times paywall numbers mean? News Corp Kremlinology ; Back in 1995 Fry and Laurie parodied It's A Wonderful Life to show us what a world without Rupert Murdoch might be like. ..... The World without Murdoch as seen in 1995 - Boing Boing
• · · · · It’s hard to look at the news photos of Rupert Murdoch this week. Where once was a titan filled with jouissance now there is an unsteady old man reeling from a week of up-ending headlines and revelations. Even though the collapse only began a week ago, it seems like we can hardly remember the globe-girdling empire builder. Who Stripped Rupert Murdoch of Power? Social Media ; Like a getaway bandit trying to lighten his load, Rupert Murdoch keeps making frantic sacrifices in hopes of containing the phone-hacking scandal that’s now consuming his News Corp media empire.
• · · · · · According to a report by ProPublica and the Guardian, key members of the family that controlled The Wall Street Journal now say they would not have agreed to sell the paper to Rupert Murdoch if they’d known about the phone-hacking underway at the time at News Corp’s News of the World. “If I had known what I know now, I would have pushed harder against” the Murdoch bid, said Christopher Bancroft, a member of the family that controlled Dow Jones & Company publishers of the WSJ ; As the metastasizing phone-hacking scandal engulfs the senior-most reaches of News Corp., the Murdoch family, and the British government, a winner may yet emerge from the corporate wreckage: Roger Ailes In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Roger Ailes Stands to Gain

Posted 10:02 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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If two men on a job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, then both are useless.
–Daryl F. Zanuck

Let’s clear up something about success. We focus too much on success – and not enough on the real meat of the story – failure – the other F-word that nobody wants to talk about... Some of you might not know who Brian Tracy is… but most have heard of Jack Lemmon: “Fear of failure will absolutely destroy you. You walk down the middle of the street. You never take any chances. You never go down the little side streets. You look at them and say: That looks interesting. But I don’t know that street. I’ll stay right here and just walk this straight line Designing in uncertainty ; The F Word: Failure makes better leaders. But no one goes looking for it, especially now The F Word:

Memoirs of Many in One I think--perhaps wrongly--that I have a gift for friendship
Contrary to Pascal's saying, we don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.
-Jacques Maritain, Reflections on America‎
To write fiction is to challenge the most basic of human facts: that we don't have access to other people's minds. Authors are more able than most to ignore the audacity of occupying other selves, though—it's in their job description. And what's a more obvious challenge than assuming the consciousness of the opposite gender?Gender Troubles

So you want to write a book. It will be a lonely, frustrating slog. Maybe a few thousand people will read it, on its way to the remainder shelf. Why bother?...
There was exciting news last month among the Twitterati. Brian Stelter, The New York Times prodigy and master of social media, announced to his 64,373 followers that he is going to write a book. The obvious question: What’s up with that?
Ah, time for the writer to start writing. But wait: Are my pens facing north? What’s that funny noise? My fingernails need cutting. Off-putting behaviour

• Let’s Ban Books, Or at Least Stop Writing Them ; [If writing makes you a miserable wretch, and reading capaciously hasn’t been a source of moral uplift, you’re hardly alone. The literary life tends to arouse dissatisfaction and antisocial behavior.. Writing is bad for you ; The Internet’s early cheerleaders – anti-Hobbesian, hippie utopians, mostly – envisioned cyberspace as an unregulated public square. It’s more like a private mall... ; Bribery is an art, and the art business in China – rife with forgeries, crooked scholars, corrupt auction houses – is brush-stroked by bribes... The Chinese art of elegant bribery]
• · Some guys just don’t know when to shut up. Consider the chronically garrulous Tony Kushner and his tendency to drown his characters in a sea of verbiage.. ; Melancholic, tormented, debauched, or otherwise awry, our poets must be lunatics, we insist. The results are both sensational and boring... I Thought You Were a Poet
• · · “It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the” News of the World.; The average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit encapsulate[d] the thesis at the heart of his unforgiving novel ; Lip-syncing at his workstation on an Army base in Iraq, the Wikileaker downloaded top-secret data onto a CD marked “Lady Gaga” How a lonely, five-foot-two, gender-questioning soldier became a WikiLeaks hero, a traitor to the U.S., and one of the most unusual revolutionaries in American history
• · · · May we suggest that the following would have been appropriate: Glenn Mulcaire and Paul McMullan are watching you; Closing the News of the World is a proportionate response, but it should not draw a line under the whole scandal
• · · · · “Humans aren’t perfect. We all make mistakes. We’re all in a state of training, a state of becoming – becoming a better worker, a better student, a better parent, a better spouse, a better friend, or a better person. When we stop making mistakes, we stop learning and growing. Mistakes are the process through which we in turn create success. Mistakes create the foundation for our life. That foundation is experience, which in turn creates the light that leads us into our future. That light is called wisdom.” Wally Amos (aka Famous Amos – once the king of the chocolate chips cookies) When Wrong Makes Right: The Upside of Failure If you haven’t achieved the success you thought you would by now, blame failure—or, rather, the lack of it
• · · · · · Quarry of the latter-day hunter-gatherer: old typewriters, vintage dolls, Bakelite jewelry. The one thing you must never ask a collector is “Why Favourite things ; Every metaphor starts out as a wild beast, waiting to be tamed by usage, writes Carlin Romano. Even the word “metaphor” is a metaphor. What's a Metaphor For?
• · · · · · Benjamin Franklin recounts in his Autobiography that during his years as a printer’s apprentice he developed a “bookish inclination” and a fondness for “the arts of rhetoric and logic.” He writes: About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. The era of the nonspecialist intellectual is over. These days, aspiring Irving Howes need to master monetary theory. What Are Intellectuals Good For? Essays and Reviews ; Bobby Fischer had much in common with Newton: Both were fear-addled egomaniacs who grew into their gifts by playing games with themselves... The Trouble with Genius

Posted 8:55 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Sociopaths love power. They love winning. If you take loving kindness out of the human brain, there's not much left except the will to win.
-Martha Stout (quoted in Jon Almond, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry)

Most Touching Songs Ever ... Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta

You (Malchkeon) are my world, my heart's desire, you lighten my heart you reside in my heart, you are my life, you cool my warm eyes... teri ore full song singh is king In you (malchkeon) I see God ; Cold Rivers of Babylon

Christopher and Lidka are celebrating their Aloha birthdays with The Bonnie M of MMMWWWWAlchkoen - Music Bloggers Hack Record Industry by Launching Indie Labels For Tom Krell, his latest record is extremely meaningful

A bona fide genius seen as a bit of a laughing stock O'Farrell Must Reform or Become the Latest NSW's Askin
Kelly letter supports Bondi plan by Currawong owners - ON THE day former planning minister Tony Kelly signed and backdated a letter involving the sale of Currawong, he wrote another one notifying Waverley Council he was taking a controversial Bondi development from the council and referring it to a government planning authority. Documents obtained by the Herald reveal that the same developers who sold Currawong to the government, Allen Linz and Eduard Litver, were involved in the development Mr Kelly was removing from council control.

John Gerathy, the solicitor who represented Mr Kelly at the recent ICAC inquiry, is the long-term business partner of Chris Cheung, the owner of the Coogee Bay Hotel. Mr Gerathy is also the business partner of former resources minister Ian Macdonald, who quit Parliament last year over allegations that he had rorted his travel expenses. The month following Mr Macdonald's departure from Parliament, the pair set up Resource Image, which is hoping to foster trade in the wine, equipment and resources sectors.
In early March, Mr Kelly also sought to bypass the City of Sydney council over an
application to redevelop the Elizabeth Bay marina, in which the family of a fellow MP, Eddie Obeid, had an interest. He recommended it be dealt with by a joint regional planning panel, despite its not having jurisdiction. He also removed the controversial $150 million development of the Coogee Bay Hotel from the control of the local council. Mr Gerathy has also been associated with colourful entrepreneur Paul Makucha, who was found by ICAC to be corrupt in his dealings with Sydney Water. The corruption watchdog has recommended that the Director of Public Prosecutions consider whether criminal charges should be laid against Mr Makucha.

• Odd extremists [A VETERAN crime fighter is saddling up for one last campaign. Evan Whitton, an expert on the history of organised crime in Australia, wants the state government to introduce an American law that has had a devastating effect on organised criminals in the US but sits uneasily with our legal system Coogee Bay Hotel and Brown Matters ; Push for law to blow organised crime apart ; Corruption risks are heightened when the lobbying of politicians is combined with the lobbyist or the lobbyist's client making donations to the politician or the politician's party or engaging in fund-raising for the politician Democracy for sale ]
• · Inquiry windfall for ATO; Australian Financial Review, 13/07/2011, page 8 By: KATIE WALSH - The federal government's $300 million Project Wickenby tax-evasion inquiry has raised more than $1 billion in tax bills, sent 18 offenders to jail and charged 62 with serious offences. The Australian Taxation Office has undertaken 2100 audits and 23 criminal investigations. One source went so far as to describe the stem Wickenby message of the compliance program as Dante-esque It's like there's a layer of hell reserved for Wickenby offenders; A massive SIX MILLION Britons have no savings at all An astonishing six million Britons are living on a knife edge without a single penny stashed away to protect them against redundancy or sudden jumps in living costs. Soaring prices across the country - where the average prices have jumped 5.2 per cent in a year (RPI) - have made it impossible for many families to save and forced others to raid their pots to stay afloat. UK Living on a knife-edge at Wickenby Towns
• · · Reuters news has this report buried among other news. A Diversion for a Look at Obtaining Some Benefits of Offshoring Onshore (6/28/11)
While it is fun and sometimes profitable to dump on offshore tax havens for their secrecy, we should remember that some of the secrecy benefits of offshoring can be achieved onshore. See Kelly Carr and Brian Grow, Special Report: A little house of secrets on the Great Plains, Reuters 1/28/11. To quote the well known commentator on the human condition: "“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7. ; Over more than three decades, no one dared question the perversion of politics by and for Rupert Murdoch It’s worth quietly noting this morning that when the Guardian first began its campaign to reveal corruption at the News of the World the Murdoch empire struck back, saying the Guardian was misleading the public. It wasn’t. It was undertaking absolutely vital, first class investigative journalism of corruption. The world is in its debt today. I think that should be acknowledged. I’m not usually much of a fan of Henry Porter but this is too appropriate to ignore: It is now time for HMG to go after Murdoch and perhaps this is the moment to investigate the complex web of tax havens and offshore accounts that News International has used to avoid paying full tax in the past. I’d bet a month’s salary that while NI papers have been urging austerity measures on the UK, the company has used every trick in the book to avoid its proper tax burden. He’s right. But remember to add in Microsoft, Apple, Google, Cisco, big pharma, the extractive industries in general and many more whilst about it. Oh, and perhaps the Telegraph needs a look. Hacking Tax Havens; News Corporation: time to go - Phone hacking, breaching every article of the journalists' code of ethics, Newscorp's time is up
• · · · Some pepper for Bernard Salt: A Generation Y response to writing and saving the planet - The media encourages younger generations to get involved but when they do they are often dismissed for old men, nude pictures, and ‘hotness delusion syndrome’. Berrnarrd ; Genius (plural geniuses[1][2]) is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight. Microsoft’s Android Plan: Evil Genius Or Just Evil? ;
• · · · · It Takes All Kinds to call for reflection and writing A guide to writing hyperpanofiction / Tony Nolan, Emily Nolan ; From the Hon. Librarian ; I talk to my fellow members of Mensa or the High IQ groups ; It takes all kinds to make a world... including the kinds who think only their kind belong in it; Exploit Humanity with All Kinds of Causes

Posted 4:33 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The new Premier has barely had time to pause for breath, writes Sean Nicholls. Barry O'Farrell looks exhausted. In shirtsleeves, having rushed from a flying morning visit to the Blue Mountains to inspect damage wrought overnight by gale-force winds, the Premier apologises for being late but cannot suppress his irritation when told he is to be photographed. Releasing a sharply delivered expletive, he calls for a jacket, which a minder indicates is on its way.
O'Farrell runs a quick hundred: ; Sympathy for shooters tops O'Farrell '100 days of failure - Time to started to focus on the problems that affect people in this city and across this state, instead of these cheap tricks ; Barry O'Farrell has promised to stop the flow of donations from corporations and trade unions, but there has been no sign of the legislation during the Coalition's first 100 days in power Roll Out the Centennial Barrel

A spectre is haunting Australia—the spectre of Russian Dragonfia The Sale, Like Love, Had to be Unconditional
The truth is emerging about the mysterious Currawong sale Eduard LITVER ranks as one of the big wheeler dealers in this city's property circles , not that he would welcome the attention which comes with being named in this week's Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings over the controversial sale of the Currawong holiday retreat to the former NSW Labor government. Litver and his business partner Allen Linz pocketed more than $2 million profit courtesy of the taxpayer, but that's not Russian-born Litver's only deal which has raised eyebrows. Litver has been renting out one of three Darling Point harbourside mansions he and wife Adriana own on Eastbourne Road to the producers of MasterChef to house the show's contestants, and for a very pretty penny. The Litvers have been charging $6500 a week on top of a $39,000 bond for around six months during the show's filming schedule.

n early 2007, the Herald broke the story that Currawong had been sold to developers Allen Linz and Eduard Litver. The executive committee of Unions NSW then met to unanimously endorse the sale. This was a token gesture as land title searches show that Linz and Litver's company, Eco Villages, had lodged a caveat on the title just before Christmas in 2006. At the time, Michael McGurk, who was representing developer Ron Medich, the man later accused of masterminding his murder, began creating a fuss. He had offered twice the $15 million amount that Linz and Litver had offered.
Replying to McGurk's criticism, John Robertson, who as unions boss had handled the sale, said crankily: ''We wanted a sale but he kept saying he wanted this changed and that changed. But we were adamant - the sale had to be unconditional.''

• Allen Linz and Eduard Litver and their Labor Party mates are fast becoming the loneliest people in NSW The Specter of Scotsman McGurk is Haunting Bearpit; The late standover man, Michael McGurk, and the property developer who is now accused of his associate's murder, Ron Medich, had offered $30 million. Macquarie Bank had offered $25 million Noble intent lost in a deal that cost public millions [Allen Linz and Eduard Litver oversee a tangle of companies ; Twisted plot of a Labor obsession; ACTOR Shane Withington was, until last year's state election, a True Believer . Italian Australian, Frank Sartor, also nicknamed as Mayor for a Russian Harry Tribugoff, has removed development approval from Pittwater Council and declared Currawong a major project, placing it under his sole authority Pirates turn a paradise into Labor's Skull Island ; Michael McGurk's final hours in Kings Cross ]
• · It's not exactly new to see Russia as a rentier economy in which government officials, oligarchs, regional strongmen and criminal bosses fight over the spoils of the oil, gas and metals industries. Back suppliers of domestic goods and services, or, as Citigroup says ‘stick with oligarchs who are successful at accessing rental flows’. Choose Russia's oligarchs with care ; Freed from the shackles of communism in the 1990s, Russia seemed to be entering an era of rebirth. But as is often the case in that country, history unfolded harshly. For the majority of Russians, the transition to a market system was painful and chaotic - and anything but democratic. Amid the confusion, a few shrewd and ruthless businessmen exploited the loopholes in the Soviet economy; Is this a pattern? Here are a series of similiar photos of Tony Abbott and Vladimir Putin. They like going bare-chested… Spot the difference: Mad monk or Russian oligarch
• · · The approval to explore for gas allows Shell Australia to drill an exploration well 50km west of the boundary of the marine park. Approval for drilling off Ningaloo Reef ; Ningaloo Reef is considered a natural wonder, sprawling some 260km along Australia's west coast and teeming with hundreds of tropical fish and coral species Ningaloo Reef: Playing Russian Roulette ; For giant oil companies like BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell, an eventual shift away from petroleum will have massive economic consequences Casualties of the energy wars ; The punishing effects of the global financial crisis, political instability, natural disasters and growing poverty in many countries create a fertile ground for corruption Gifts or bribes: UK act means companies need to make decisions fast
• · · · Good news amid the gloom: Some people sponsor a tree, others pull up weeds but when Chris Turnbull and Len Gervay wanted to do something for endangered plants they decided to run 900 kilometres. The two men set off from Sydney a week ago, following the Hume Highway to Melbourne, raising thousands of dollars for the NSW Seedbank on the way. The seedbank is part of the Millennium Seed Bank, a global effort to protect the world's plants from extinction by collecting and studying their seeds Marathon men sow seeds of history ; Today I want to get out of the gloom and focus on three pieces of good news. Australia isn't renowned for having a thriving home-grown electronics sector ... Good news amid the gloom
• · · · · Humpback whales breaching off Dover Heights Tall tails and true as season kicks off ;A new record was set yesterday with 103 whales recorded by volunteers sitting on the cliffs of Cape Solander at Botany Bay. Survey shmurvey, we say! Migrating whales set a massive record
• · · · · · New World Heritage: Kenyan Lakes, Australian Coast, Japanese Islands‎ Extraordinary natural areas in Kenya, Australia, Japan and Germany that deserve the highest level of protection have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List by an international panel of government representatives at its annual meeting in Paris. A World Heritage forest site in Eastern Europe was expanded to include Germany Extraordinary natural areas ; Swim with whale sharks: Ningaloo Reef

Posted 7:27 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Truth is the safest lie.
-- High Tatra Mountains Gural proverb

What is Cold River because it tells you how to read history. You'll never read a history book in the same way again. On 7 – 7 – 1980, VII – VII – MCMLXXX, Bessie became the only dog, animal ever, of the Cold War era to receive a political asylumn - Vienna, Austria . Since that symbolic date I am trying to figure out two very simple things. How to live, and how to die. Period. That’s all I’m trying to do, all day long. (7-7) a symbolic Kabalic reference - First and Only dog ever granted political asylum

Sydney is a city of Agape and Botany is where this city's love for creative antipodean life and food was born ... While it is always difficult deciding which are the top ten restaurants in Sydney, I discovered an amazing one, Agape, where I ate a meal so fine that I could easily have closed my eyes and imagined myself at a table in my Mother's house ... 1387 Botany Road Botany NSW 2019 +61-2 8668-5777 Agape: Organic Blessings

Braving sub-zero temperatures, she has thrown caution — and her clothes — to the wind to tame two beluga whales in a unique and controversial experiment. Natalia Avseenko, 36, was persuaded to strip naked as marine experts believe belugas do not like to be touched by artificial materials such as diving suits. The skilled Russian diver took the plunge as the water temperature hit minus 1.5 degrees Centigrade. Cold River Diver ; Natalia - Experienced or not, how do you swim naked in sub-freezing water and live?



Charter 77 - Publishing 'Cold River' Against All Odds Civilization: The West and the Rest
Ferguson’s contention is that the rise and decline of a given civilisation does not obey a decipherable or predictable rhythm in the way thinkers as diverse as Hegel, Marx and Spengler have postulated:
What if history is not cyclical and slow moving but arrhythmic—sometimes almost stationary, but also capable of violent acceleration? What if historical time is less like the slow and predictable changing of the seasons and more like the elastic time of our dreams? Above all, what if collapse is not centuries in the making but strikes a civilization suddenly, like a thief in the night?

On March 7, 1989, thirty-two-year-old Winfried Freudenberg’s makeshift balloon crash landed, securing him the posthumous honour of last person to die escaping across the Berlin Wall. A month before, on the night of February 6, Chris Gueffroy, aged twenty, was shot ten times in the chest while attempting to flee East Berlin in the vicinity of the Britz district canal. All four East German soldiers involved in the murder of Gueffroy were duly presented with a GDR medal and 150 East German marks. What brave souls like Gueffroy and Freudenberg did not know—and, according to perhaps the most important thesis in Niall Ferguson’s Civilization: The West and the Rest, could not know—was that eight or so months later, on the night of November 9, 1989, an opening would miraculously appear in the Wall.

• Superior but Brittle [The history of children of freedom fighters is a long story of children on some level resenting their parents, feeling their parents have given themselves over to a cause while neglecting their roles as parents. But your book is very much a love letter to your father and mother. Even at the points of greatest tension in your parents’ lives, they’re teaching you and your sister how to ski and comforting you when you’re sick. But is there a part of you then, or at anytime of your life, or now, that resents your parents for putting themselves at so much risk, thus risking you growing up without parents? ; George Orwell never thought that his work would outlive him by much Orwell endures, and I am not sure that this is a good thing ; ]
• · In a lecture, Peter Hennessy recently described the historian's craft as akin to the cryogenic trade – warming up the frozen history of the archive until it began to talk. Such a delicate procedure is usually best performed by hand Online is fine, but history is best hands on ; WEB EXCLUSIVE How Much Did Social Media contribute to Revolution in the Middle East? ; How Julian Assange was captured y his own persona International Man of Mystery
• · · I gather that is why Jeff Bezo's Amazon is matching the BD's prices of Cold River now ... The Book Depository will have made an attractive proposition to Amazon, as it had operating profit of £2.3m on sales of £69m in the year to June 2010, and those profit figures are thought to have gotten even better. It has also located much of its business in Egypt where operating costs are cheaper. The Book Depository will have made an attractive proposition to Amazon, as it had operating profit of £2.3m on sales of £69m in the year to June 2010, and those profit figures are thought to have gotten even better. It has also located much of its business in Egypt where operating costs are cheaper. It wants to sell "less of more" rather than "more of less," deliberately avoiding front-loading with bestsellers in order to attract custom. Books are available to buy at such low prices online they make Waterstone's staple 'three for the price of two' offer look somewhat dog-eared; Amazon plot thickens in Book Depository buyout ; Amazon's decision to acquire The Book Depository
• · · · Amazon plot thickens in Book Depository buyout ; Book Depository
• · · · · Mark Twain never met an idea he could not reduce to a joke – including, it seems, the conventions of autobiography.
A Memoir of Lust Without Reason ; Virginia Woolf knew well the tedium of the literary critic. “My mind feels as though a torrent of weak tea has been poured over it ; Like Bessie of Cold River fame, Bo Hoefinger is unique. He is a literary dog who doesn’t run with the pack when it comes to keeping secrets. He’s written a blog, and now a book, Bad to the Bone – Memoir of a Rebel Doggie Blogger. My dog, Charity Marie, read Bad to the Bone and immediately hid it. That’s how I knew this was a book that screamed to be read Bad to the Bone ; Oprah, Amazon, and The Rise of Therapeutic Fiction: Timothy Aubry’s Reading as Therapy
• · · · · · This is the puzzle motivating English professor Timothy Aubry’s new study of American reading habits, Reading as Therapy. And it’s a good question. After all, everyone knows that America has a dead or dying literary culture, yet novels—including “literary” novels—continue to be written at a record-setting pace Principles of Uncertainty Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World); Cold war ; Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Cold River ; It seems so much like Soviet-style media control that at times I feel like I'm reading an account of a Western journalist in Cold-War era Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in MEdia Dragon

Posted 7:07 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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In reading, a lonely quiet concert is given to our minds; all our mental faculties will be present in this symphonic exaltation.
-Stéphane Mallarmé

It's one of the most difficult to get into -- it publishes under 1 percent of what's submitted. Poetry Magazine, November 2005The Poetry Foundation opened its new home in Chicago last weekend. As it celebrates this achievement, we decided it would be fun to ask for people's stories about being rejected from the foundation's time-honored literary journal, Poetry magazine. If you're a writer and you've sent out work to journals, you know the feeling

Cold River of Screenwriting Resources

Reading Chinese Corruption as Literature or as Cold River Where Corrupt Chinese Hide Their Cash…and Themselves
Investigation by People's Bank of China finds more than $120bn has been smuggled out of country since mid-1990s. Corrupt Chinese officials and executives absconded overseas with roughly $120 billion from the mid-1990s to 2008, and the United States was the most popular destination, according to a report from China's central bank. Where Corrupt Chinese Hide Their Cash…and Themselves Dev Kar, Lead Economist, Global Financial Integrity wrote:
Nice article. It could have noted that according to several studies at Global Financial integrity, China ranks number one in terms of the volume of illicit financial flows from developing countries. According to our most recent study, China lost US$344 billion through illicit outflows in 2008–mostly through trade mispricing (which includes abusive transfer pricing by multinationals).

A transfer price is what one part of a company charges another part of the same company for goods or services. In the excerpt from Casablanca, Rick Blaine apparently loaned Signor Ferrari 100 cartons of cigarettes for which he was never repaid. Now that Ferrari owns both the Blue Parrot and Rick’s Café, he jokes about the fact that what was previously a debt that he owed to Rick, is now a “debt” from one nightclub that he owns to another nightclub that he owns. If Ferrari continues to transfer cartons of cigarettes between the two clubs, he might wish to establish a “transfer price” for cigarettes, but knowing Ferrari, he won’t bother. (Eventually, Rick helped an idealistic Czech resistance fighter escape with the woman Rick loved - Rick helped his former lover, Lois Meredith, flee to safety with the Czech refugee Victor Lazlo being pursued by the German agent Strasser. - Trivia Everybody Comes to Rick's is an unpublished play which was the basis for the movie Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. )

• Report reveals huge scale of corruption among Chinese government officials; Forbes [The reports said the study was posted to the website of China’s central bank. While the PDF document remains widely available in Chinese cyberspace, the report – dated June 2008 and identified as “confidential” – no longer appears on the People’s Bank of China website. The 67-page report from China’s central bank looks at where corrupt officials go and how they get their money out. Wall Street Blog: Corrupt Chinese Officials Take $123 Billion Overseas; Report corruption, collect commission – Who says crime doesn’t pay? ; Offshore Watch ]
• · Bill Keller, New York Times Boss, Still Not Loving WikiLeaks, Twitter ; The author of The Cult Of The Amateur argues that if we lose our privacy we sacrifice a fundamental part of our humanity Privacy is passé - if not dead. Confessional tweets, narcissistic status updates: We are the Wikileakers of our own lives Your Life Torn Open, essay 1: Sharing is a trap
• · · Julian Assange and his controversial whistle-blower forum, WikiLeaks, have received support from the majority of voters who participated in an online poll conducted by Essential Research and published by Crikey in December last year. The poll discovered that 80 per cent of Greens voters unreservedly approved of WikiLeaks with only 30 per cent of voters across the political spectrum saying they were against the organisation. Popularity of WikiLeaks boosted by News Corp's sloppy journalism; The WikiLeaks cables read like good literature. Both diplomacy and fiction, after all, feature plots, moral ambiguity, and casual deception Reading WikiLeaks as literature ; Wikileaks represents a new type of (h)activism, which shifts the source of potential threat from a few, dangerous hackers and a larger group of mostly harmless activists – both outsiders to an organization – to those who are on the inside. For insiders trying to smuggle information out, anonymity is a necessary condition for participation. Wikileaks has demonstrated that the access to anonymity can be democratized, made simple and user friendly. You Have No Sovereignty Where We Gather – Wikileaks and Freedom, Autonomy and Sovereignty in the Cloud; Glencore in vow to come clean on details of tax payments around the world;
• · · · Maligned as a gold digger, Wallis Simpson in fact never wanted Edward VIII to abdicate the throne. She wasn’t even in love with him The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science; Pity modern man. College-graduation rates, sperm counts, and testosterone levels are all down. “Emasculation is a national blood sport” n Pity modern man. It's Raining on Men: Balls Deep at the Conference on Male Studies
• · · · · What used to be seen as a last resort is fast becoming the most successful trend in writing. Alison Flood talks to the authors doing it themselves How self-publishing came of age - Self-Publishing Takes Off ; It used to be the rare judge who would go for rim shots from the bench Court Jesting: These Sentences Don't Get Judged Too Harshly ;
• · · · · · It’s quite hard to know where to begin, reviewing The Stranger’s Child. As I finished it, and was heard making bloody-hell-this-is-good noises, two people asked me: ‘What’s it about?’ That, as it turns out, is a very good question Golden lads and girls ; Non-writers who have bailed on novels and short stories often say they've exhausted their patience for flagrantly 'untrue' narratives. One blogger explained it thus: 'I put it down to having experienced enough real life narrative and drama such that made-up stories no longer appeal I've stopped reading fiction; The Kafka that many of us read for the first time was in part a construction of Edwin and Willa Muir. Readers on the whole worry little about it, being grateful for access to foreign goods. Nevertheless, I often wonder what people mean when they say they like the way that, for example, Haruki Murakami writes. Or Imrich

Posted 7:31 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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“To thine own self be true,” said Polonius. Timeless advice, but who are you, really, other than an enigma to yourself?...

Outrageous revenge plots when love between astronauts or a puritanical judge and his siren-like sister-in-law went wrong. The public humiliation of a bit player in the Clinton impeachment circus. A lurid misery memoir exposed as fiction. Do we gain anything from reading narratives of these personal unravellings apart from (guilty) pleasure at the pain of others? We might, but not by reading this new book on scandals Who put the Moravian born Freud into Schadenfreude?

The creation of a Southern Silk Road Prime Time for Liberty: Marx of the Media Age
The early bird gets the worm,
and the early worm gets eaten.
I duped the despot by crawling like a snake,” wrote Adam Mickiewicz. No one survives in a dictatorship without being compromised... In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe

There were moments reading this book when I was forced to shut it closed, an experience utterly alien to me. Like any reasonably historically-aware individual, I considered myself familiar with the carnage that overtook Europe in the earlier half of the 20th century: the gas chambers and the gulags, the mass shootings and show trials, the wanton disregard for human life and the heinous ideas which compelled people to, actively or passively, play a part in the deaths of tens of millions of fellow human beings. Reading about this period, there comes a point when the sheer scale and horror of the events which took place — the instant incineration of tens of thousands of civilians, for instance — desensitizes one from appreciating the sheer terror and physical pain that individuals endured.

• The Butchery of Hitler and Stalin [Empty trash. Buy milk. Forge history; Dangerous minds Criminal Minds; Paul Theroux loathes luxury. He set off 50 years ago in search of miserable, difficult places; forbidden cities; and back roads...;
As a young girl, Arundhati Roy once raided her teacher’s garden in her native village in Kerala, the lush tropical state in the south of India. She dug up the carrots, removed the edible orange roots, then carefully replanted the green tops in the soil. It took four days for the greenery to wither and the crime to be discovered. The culprit was never identified There is romance in their resistance]
• · TWO MILLIGRAMS OF The Big B, the doctor will say not so long from now after you have come in for relief from the Theme Park Adventure that is your life. It will cure what ails your restless iPodded, iPadded, and Kindled existence. Boredom, which begins, as Walter Benjamin put it, when “we don’t know what we’re waiting for,” is now a solution, not a problem. The Uses of Tedium; Last requests. In death, John Ross wanted his ashes mixed with pot, rolled into a joint, and smoked at his funeral; Hard to say what’s more ridiculous: reading Ayn Rand or sitting through a three-part film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. Pick your poison
• · · Humans are natural-born storytellers, so lying is in our blood Lying and art spring from a common impulse: to escape reality. Art is in fact a kind of lying, and lying a form of art... If you can lie, you can act - Promiscuous with his enthusiasms; Among the countless pleasures of profanity is versatility. Noun, verb, adverb, or adjective, four-letter vulgarities are indispensable Adverb; “The only way to write is well,” said A.J. Liebling, “how you do it is your own damn business.” Unless you’re Jozef Imrich... Heavy sentences
• · · · Marshall McLuhan is the Marx of the media age. But his Catholicism was no deadening opiate. It made him more ambitious and far-reaching...At the turn of the nineteenth century and in the early decades of the twentieth there was Darwin in biology, Marx in political science, Einstein in physics, and Freud in psychology. Since then there has been only McLuhan in communications studies. Marx of the media age; Peter's classmate Greg Hywood; Where should the ABC sit within the changing media landscape? The Place Of The National Broadcaster
• · · · · The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning ... Saroeun with Sister; The story of the families who fled the killing fields of Cambodia to find safety in Australia, revisited nearly 25 years on. What are they doing? Did they find a home? And what does their experience tell us about the current debate over refugee arrivals? Where Are They Now?
• · · · · · China has been buying-up Australian farming land and mines. Does this represent a national problem? Selling off the farm?; China is not only Australia's largest trading partner, but is also an increasingly important supplier of capital. Indeed, Hong Kong aside, Australia is now China's top foreign direct investment destination. Chinese perspectives on investing in Australia; Southern silk road: Turbocharging "South-South" economic growth

Posted 8:26 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The law, sir, is like a net. Little fish slip through it.
Great fish crash through it. And all the rest are hopelessly
entangled in it.
-Media Dragons

It is the end of another financial year and what a creative year is has been Making a film about Certainty in life ; A year in Review and Ahead

David Slavitt’s “Youth, Age, Life, and Art” (Rounding the Horn, 1978):

Innocent, young, I wove syntactical nets
to snare moments of joy, but when one gets
older, the trick is reversed, and, late at night,
to fend the beasts off—fear, rage, and despair—
that prowl the dark or hover in the air,
I sit in my circle of lamplight and I [blog].

Posted 6:54 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Perhaps, after all, there is something in the theory that only the ultra-busy can find time for everything.
-James Agate, Ego 4 at June's 87th Birthday Party

Wagons is a rock band made up of Henry Wagons (on lead vocals and guitar), Steve ‘Harmony’ Hassett (bass and backing vocals), Richard Blaze (lead guitar), Mark ‘Tuckerburg’ Dawson (drums and percussion), Si the Philanthropist (on washboard and drums), and Matty ‘Soft Moods’ Hassett (on keyboards). Wagons grew up in Melbourne's outer-eastern suburbs. Henry's first band were a pretentious noise slavic group called Dworzec Henry Wagons love for performing is electric, he leads the crowd to a sing-a-long that blows the roof off, the absolute apex of the gig. During the encore Wagons' jumps off stage and prowls through the crowd that he has thoroughly seduced. This triple-bill - Adelaide Boy, Gin Club, Wagons- saw a music-loving Saturday night crowd pack out the Gabbie's godmother's hotel, shuffling in to see what the fuss was all about. Henry Wagons was likely out of his mind on Saturday night at 11th birthday of Gwynne's Annandale Hotel and he was determined to jar you right out of yours, MTs, Malchkeon, and Mine ;-)

Conjuring up images of Jack Black The big and bloody hearted men of Larsson calibre
Always providing you have enough courage--or money--you can do without a reputation.
-Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
No one knew the enigmatic author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels as well as Eva Gabrielsson, Stieg Larsson’s partner of four decades.

In an adaptation from her memoir, she shares the shock of his death, and the code that shaped his life.

Turn off your cellphone,
Start powering it down.
Turn off your cellphone
Or your fellow men will frown.
If it rings at the end of The Crucible,
All the ushers will treat you as gooseable.
If you chat when you ought to be si-o-lent,
Then assume that your date will get violent.
We're all sick of the buzzing and ringing
That detracts from the acting and singing.
Turn off your cellphone
Or get out of town.

• Stieg Larsson’s Long Good-Bye [Though all the religions of the world teach love, preach sympathy for others and encourage Man to exercise utmost self-restraint and have most profoundly been a source of inspiration for the highest good of mankind, the world today is torn by conflicts, enmity and religious hatred. Guru Granth Sahib: A Model For Interfaith Understanding; When Imre Kertész, the Hungarian-Jewish novelist and Auschwitz survivor, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002, the Swedish Academy understandably cited his "writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history," even as Kertész, the first Hungarian to win the prize, expressed hope that it might more generally shine light on the "ignored literature of Hungary Here There Is a Why: Primo Levi, Humanist ]
• · David Perry, our EVP/Head of TV Production at Saatchi & Saatchi NY, was recently polled with a bunch of other ad people for an item by Shoot, a hot hub on all things production. David is a veteran, a director and producer par excellence who's tasted it all, and cut to the chase with some clear insights and advice... Straight Shooting ; One that feels ironic is a Chilean volcano unleashing a global cloud of ash just two days after Apple launched its iCloud suite Crazy Clouds
• · · Kiss in Just a Kiss ; Lying and art spring from a common impulse: to escape reality. Art is in fact a kind of lying,.. and lying a form of art.
• · · · The only way to write is well, said A.J. Liebling, how you do it is your own damn business Unless you’re Jozef Imrich... Heavy sentences of note; Steve Rubel very publically erased his blogging history and jumped to Tumblr to start afresh. As he mentioned to Mathew Ingram at GigaOm the idea to to not confuse Google with old content that does not in his view reflect his social signals appropriately. The shift to Tumblr is a choice that is his and no issue there. Although I found these stats interesting, with nothing particularly anti social about my choice, WordPress. The big surprise for me is the demise of Google’s blogger – it is all but dead Has the thought leader out-thought himself?; Companies have been focussed on a very narrow definition of profit and value creation. The New Capitalist Manifesto
• · · · · At least 60 members of Congress currently hold stock in several news companies across the country, according to a story released by opensecrets.org, The Center for Responsive Politics last week. The story exposed these congressmen as hidden investors in media companies, questioning their motives and the impact that this may have on these newsrooms. Many members of Congress actually have a vested interest -- beyond just their political careers -- in the performance of the same organizations that are… ; GAO Investigative news; IRS in the dark about number of tax shelters and avoidance schemes
• · · · · · Why are women attracted to rich men who just want one-night stands? Because they want to change them ...The smug-looking guy with the expensive sports car and the smirk that says 'I'm rich,' is obviously trying to impress a woman with his display of wealth. Jozef Imrich ; Peter Griffin, Family Guy Al Bundy probably would have traded his kids for a cold beer. Top 10 Worst Fictional Fathers

Posted 1:37 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.
-Walter Anderson

Chances are when you're wandering around your local store doing your weekly grocery shop there are brands you gravitate to. BBC food journalist Alex Riley recently dug deep into the emotional connection we have with our favorite food brands, and with two simple experiments he confirmed what we've known for some time... Familiar Faces

Lisa Lindblad is the au courant specialist to watch with one foot in the world of rarefied media dragons and the other in that get-there-first travel adventure as Linda is the source of amazing ideas and resource for the authentic, surprising experiences every sole survivor wants these days … Willing Foot: I am the Cold River, You are the Sea

Google for Media Dragons Giant Leaps for Mankind
So if you're hungry, don't just grab food, grab a book and chow down with Books & Nooks At Books & Nooks we have paired our two favourite pastimes ‘reading and dining out’ to bring you a delicious new book club experience.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to read more, then Books & Nooks could be your literary lifesaver. This is a book club like no other: they’ll deliver a beautifully wrapped title to your door and then tempt you to actually read it with the promise of intelligent discussion in fabulous surrounds with top food and the odd cocktail. Books are like children: after all the love and attention, they swim or fly the coop and have independent lives

Coda: Mirek saw a rather odd t-shirt stating – I do not need to google as my wife knows everything!
• odd cocktail ; NASA is an ideas factory Giant Leaps for Mankind [If It Is Too Inconvenient, I'm Not Going After It: Research Links ; Convenience as a Critical Factor in Information-seeking Behavior ]
• · This is a series of posts highlighting people and projects that we encounter during our travels that are doing the hard work of changing the world for the better. Tash on her Publishing Journey: I am the Cold River, You are the Sea; Be the Change: Malachi Leopold and his story of reunited love; From Twitter to Facebook, from blogging to YouTube, his company is responsible for making sure the campaign maintains a. high profile on the Internet
• · · The US immigration story is different from Australia's but some political challenges are the same Immigration: the political elephant in Canberra and Washington; The population problem won't be solved until we break the capitalist paradigm Dick Smith on growth; emphatically yes...and no
• · · · "Information taken from this site should be cited as Alvaredo, Facundo, Anthony B. Atkinson, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, The World Top Incomes Database, dd/mm/yyyy. We advise making explicit reference to the date when the database was consulted, as the statistics may change. The specific country chapters and papers should also be cited. (Select Countries, Select Years, Select Variables - populated as choices are made): The World Top Incomes Database; Kristinn Hrafnsson opened the case for the proposition ''WikiLeaks is a force for good' …. Suelette Dreyfus, a University of Melbourne academic who wrote Underground in collaboration with the website's founder, Julian Assange, said WikiLeaks was a necessary addition to the array of checks and balances on power. The evidence has shown that the watchdogs and the agencies of democracy aren't enough on their own The debate is over: we heart WikiLeaks as force for good; The WikiLeaks News & Views Blog -- Special Weekend Edition!
• · · · · In a catch-me-if-you-can explanation of why it has targeted the likes of Sony, the US Senate, an FBI affiliate, and online porn sites, the LulzSec hacking group says it plans to keep having fun until it gets caught 4 Things WikiLeaks Taught Us About Document Security ; The hacking free-for-all continued this week as Sega apparently became the latest victim of a network breach and none other than hacking group LulzSec offered to help the game company by taking down the responsible parties After Sega gets hacked, LulzSec offers to seek revenge; LulzSec leaks 62,000 emails and passwords ; Miller said that companies were rushing to put all of their information into the internet "cloud" without understanding that by connecting their databases to the internet they were exposing themselves to risks of serious attacks
• · · · · · There's no doubt that the ground is shaking underneath what we used to think of as journalism. The politics of literary boycotts; There's a thin line between sex and politics Journalism Shedding Its Old Mass Media Skin ; In fact, there are serious doubts as to her location and even identity, and many are suggesting her entire persona as an American-born Syrian blogging live from the revolution was an elaborate hoax. Male lesbians: just one type of creepy online fakery

Posted 4:48 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Heath Aston interviews Bruce Hawker who believes O'Farrell's team underestimates Secord at its peril: I think he will be a real front-footer. He's a big man but he's highly energetic. I'd be surprised if he didn't find his way into the shadow ministry very early on. Robbo and co. will be listening to what he has to say because there was no one better at dealing with the press gallery than Walt

He was creative, says Hawker. He could always muster up a [positive] story from virtually nothing. You need someone like that in government. He had the energy to trawl through the Government Gazette and find things others had missed. The Trolley of Truth; Patrick Low, the former press secretary to Education Minister John Aquilina, told the commission he was pressured by Mr Carr's press secretary, Walter Secord, to shore up a rumour the 15-year-old had access to a gun because it would make a better
story.

Who Feeds the Watchdogs: The Power of the Crowd Sources of Truths & Pravda: Crisis what crisis?
We need to keep the press from being absorbed into The Media. This means keeping the word press, which is antiquated. But included under its modern umbrella should be all who do the serious work in journalism, regardless of the technology used. The people who will invent the next press in America--and who are doing it now online--continue an experiment at least 250 years old. It has a powerful social history and political legend attached.

Mark Pearson and Roger Patching of Bond University have published a literature review, "Government media relations: A 'Spin' through the literature", a terrific resource for researchers and students interested in what, unfortunately, have become the dark arts of access to, and communication of, government information.

• Dark arts of spin and related topics; Rosen's presentation bemoaned the fact that professional journalists are not harnessing the power of the crowd [ The perpetual development in technology creates a plethora of jobs for us media folk; the problem arises when we, as first years, must choose just one. So, after much deliberation and a bit of guesswork it appears I’m following in the family footsteps and choosing a career in Public Relations. Government media relations: A 'spin' through the literature; If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on Public Relations]
• · Media Advisers - Shadow players in political communication; Crikey ; How does Wikileaks effect journalism? Crime ethics;
• · · When I say a huge army, I mean a really massive number of them. It feels like there are at least 50 PRs to each journalist; At first glance, I’m surprised anyone would question the value PR professionals provide for journalists. Do Journalists Need PR Professionals Anymore?
• · · · Journalists will always highlight the wrongdoings of anyone else in the society, but when it comes to their own community, they unite and act as mafia.; Media Coverage of Corruption
• · · · · New Manual; Wendy Bacon, a former journalist with Fairfax and now a professor of journalism, admitted in The Australian (24 January 1999) that Jim McClelland confessed to her and others that the late Lionel Murphy, Labor Party hero and High Court Judge, had been corrupt. Media lies and corruption
• · · · · · Investigative journalism; “Crisis what crisis?” was Fifa President’s reaction to a journalist’s question at a press conference called by the football’s governing body yesterday. Crisis what crisis?

Coda: Most people (even many who work on the brain) assume that what you see is pretty much what your eye sees and reports to your brain. In fact, your brain adds very substantially to the report it gets from your eye, so that a lot of what you see is actually "made up" by the brain. Seeing more than your eye does
20 Beautiful Photographs Created With Pinhole Camera

Posted 12:37 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The prize is awarded annually to a journalist whose work has "penetrated the established version of events and told and unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel', as Martha Gellhorn called it." Julian Assange wins Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism

Here’s a hot shot of inspiration: The New York Times deputy national editor Adam Bryant could be described as the "CEO whisperer." Bryant conducts regular interviews with CEOs and other leaders for his weekly Sunday Business feature called Corner Office. Among the many lessons Bryant has gleaned from top executives such as Gordon Bethune, Howard Shultz and Eduardo Castro-Wright is they tend to get misty-eyed when they speak about certain employees who exhibit a quality Bryant calls "fearlessness." Who are the fearless? They are rebels who refuse to accept the status quo when things are merely "fine." They advocate turning the system upside down and even breaking it in order to make it better. The fearless are also those who have made non-traditional and often risky career choices. According to Bryant, CEOs appreciate people who value experience and want to broaden their base of skills instead of simply climbing the ladder. every single day I try and do something that’s out of my comfort zone and I think that’s just a good rule for living

River of Shadows: And I mean it
My personal life, Ayn Rand says, ‘is a postscript to my novels; it consists of the sentence: “And I mean it.”’

If you try to find out about the legacy of Ayn Rand, your search engine will probably direct you first to aynrand.org, a website run by the Ayn Rand Institute in California. The ARI was founded in 1985, three years after Rand’s death, by Leonard Peikoff, her friend and heir. It runs a newsletter called Impact and, via the Objectivist Academic Center, undergraduate courses in the Randian world vision.

• Your Voice in My Head, As Astonishing as Ayn ['m rather interested in the idea of reviewing nonfiction. Like, how up to the task should the reviewer be? How knowledgeable, how willing to call someone on their bullshit? (I obsess over this a little bit, actually, since I've been reviewing nonfiction exclusively at my books column for the Smart Set. One 60-ish man, a former Fortune 500–company administrator, bragged, Sergeant McKee says, that his retirement plan consisted of having sex with as many prostitutes as possible Smart Set ; We periodically have to give thanks for the existence of Rebecca Solnit, for pieces like "Men Explain Things to Me." And now, her piece on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, asking why the storyline has to be so goddamn obvious, so metaphorical.
What makes the sex scandal that broke open last week so resonant is the way the alleged assailant and victim model larger relationships around the world, starting with the IMF’s assault on the poor. That assault is part of the great class war of our era, in which the rich and their proxies in government have endeavored to aggrandize their holdings at the expense of the rest of us. Poor countries in the developing world paid first, but the rest of us are paying now, as those policies and the suffering they impose come home to roost via right-wing economics that savages unions, education systems, the environment, and programs for the poor, disabled, and elderly in the name of privatization, free markets, and tax cuts.]
• · Global Wealth Continues Its Strong Recovery with $9 Trillion Gain, but Pressures on Wealth Managers Persist ; FRANK Lowy is known as one of Australia's most successful businessmen, having co-founded the Westfield group and turned it into a global shopping centre empire. Mirja and Kevin Denlay, are said to be clients of LGT and Mr Kieber passed on their names to the tax office
• · · Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later Blogs Will Change Your Business ; We believe transparent government is better government. Twitter enables real conversation between lawmakers and voters, in real time. Find your representatives in Congress Twitter ; TweetCongress.org ; For many politicians, Twitter represents a Rumsfeldian "known unknown," an expansive tundra of technology that simply exists and is filled with strange language, bizarre communication concepts, and millions of fans of some child named Justin Bieber. The Ultimate Twitter Guide for Politicians & Other Really Important People
• · · · Ever wondered what goes through your mind when you choose where to sit on the train? Or in a waiting room? An interesting study by researchers for the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has an interesting take on it all. Sit Still ; Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
• · · · · Each year media heavyweights like Monocle, Forbes and The Economist publish a list of the world’s most liveable cities – the very best places to live in the world ; Vancouver is Hollywood’s urban body double. It is famously the stand-in for New York, LA, Seattle and Chicago, employed when those cities just get too tough, too traffic-clogged, too murderous or too bureaucratic to film in Liveable v lovable
• · · · · · Leaders talk about holding large-scale public conversations, but they won't succeed if the methods are unsatisfying for participants, if an authentic conversation occurs at all. In this paper, Lyn Carson presents the World Café method, a viable way of involving large numbers of people in a meaningful, conversational exchange. She describes how a particular World Café event was designed, and then explore the value of the World Café method as a means to achieve social change. Professor Lyn Carson from the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney talks about using deliberative democracy to solve the world's 'wicked problems' Designing a public conversation using the World Café method ; World Café ; Sydney Film Festivals and Cafes

Posted 7:07 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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I wish to goodness my life were not always a circle. I wish I were not always resting beneath the umbrella of my own personality.
-John P. Marquand, The Late George Apley

The whole lucky 13th floor was bushed out, and time fell away when I read this improvised way of looking at working life, though not because my working life is in any way behind the times:
I feel like I am hiding Anne Frank!
I feel like I've been told the secret but have sold it for a ride on Khassogi's yatch.
I feel like I have discovered the best icecream shop in Melbourne, but cannot share it with my friends
The burden of knowing this dark, tempting secret is prematurely ageing me (is their face-lift leave in the new agency agreement?).
I hold your career in the palm of my hand and it is a quivering dove.
What to do, what to do?
Misguided Hope of Literary Intelligence Analyst

Seekers Lovers Keepers of Poetry Poetry She Wrote
Smile, like you've got nothing to lose,
No matter what you might do
There's always someone out there
Cooler than you

I know that's hard to believe
But there are people you meet
They're into something
That is to big to be expressed
Through their clothes
And they'll put up
With all the poses you throw

And you won't even know
That they're not sizing you up
They know your mum messed you up
Or maybe let you watch
Too much TV
But they'll still look in your eyes
To find the human inside
You know there's always something
In there to see
Beneath the veneer
Not everybody made the list this year
Have a beer

Make me feel tiny
If it makes you feel tall
But there's always someone
Cooler than you

Now that I've got the disease
In a way I'm relieved
'Cause I don't have to stress about it
Like you do

I might just get up and dance
Or buy some acid-washed pants
When you don't care
Then you've got nothing to lose

And I won't hesitate
'Cause every moment
Life is slipping away

Make me feel tiny
If it makes you feel tall
But there's always someone
Cooler than you

No One is Cooler Than MEdia Dragon ;-) by Gannon TM © 7 June 2011 (Non Nag)
• Publish Away - Diary as Sin ; [ Non Nag Family Tree on the Largest Island; Why poets and writers like treasure islands ]
• · Forget Facebook – our cognitive capacities max out at three to five intimate friendships. Time to shrink our social networks? ; Lying and art spring from a common impulse: to escape reality. Art is in fact a kind of lying, and lying a form of art. Truth Telling
• · · Ours is the age of the meme, in which information spreads faster and farther than ever before. But who’s in charge, us or our memes? Ideas, fads, hoaxes; Tina Fey has turned superficial self-deprecation into shtick. The lesson for female comics: Be unthreatening and men might let you join the show.. NEUROSIS AND COMEDY make a natural pair. The former is often a type of pathological self-awareness, and nothing breeds a sense of comic irony like obsessive doubt and social maladjustment. Woody Allen, Richard Lewis, Larry David: all Jewish men from whose brains you can almost hear the constant whir of anxious introspection The Neurosis Racket; >; By day, Stephen Griffiths pursued his doctorate in homicide studies, writing a dissertation on 19th-century methods of murder. By night, he employed 14th-century tactics on his victims Murder Most Academic
• · · · Paul Theroux loathes luxury. He set off 50 years ago in search of miserable, difficult places; forbidden cities; and back roads The places in between ; Poverty deepens and inequality grows. But the rich, says Deirdre McCloskey, are blameless: “Success in a commercial society is a victimless crime. The success of capitalism and the failure of central planning in improving the lot of ordinary citizens have not, however, diminished the clerisy’s attraction to government planning or its disdain for the market. Instead, the clerisy has claimed that the wealth of some in a world where others are poor is a sure sign of the sinfulness of the former and the innocence, if not sainthood, of the latter. An Obvious Secret
• · · · · From recruitment to employment law and from leadership development to career moves, HR covers the gamut ; Count on this blog to learn more about workers’ compensation, risk management and more ; There is no joy in saying "We told you so," when the price being paid is so high. This week's economic news of lowered growth forecasts, record housing lows, and increasing unemployment claims is truly tragic. But the silver lining is that this continuing evidence of the failure of Big Government is driving more and more people to think again. Prime Time for Liberty
• · · · · · Trefis breaks down the most important aspects of the LinkedIn IPO. Providing answers to pressing questions, this report not only helps investors determine the true value of LNKD, but can also serve as a guide for how to approach other splash IPOs, like Groupon’s impending offering. LinkedIn: 10 Things You Should Know Before Investing; Despite long professing the benefits of understanding happiness, the father of the positive psychology movement now believes it's overrated. According to Dr Martin Seligman's new book Flourish, happiness is just one of the components of true well-being. It’s Time to Flourish ; Museums by Google

CODA:
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
— Steve Jobs, June 2005

Tash the master/mistress photographer of the soul and character of individuals of diverse classes and callings is off on a foto - publishing journey of a lifetime Lens and Pixel e

Posted 8:26 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once, and they require separate techniques. Winston Churchill have mastered language more than any other statesman. Even so, when he wanted to rally the British people during the Second World War, he didn’t speak like a scholar. He said—so basically that anyone could understand—“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs—victory in spite of all terrors—victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”

On a micro level, The Tree of Life, set primarily in the 1950s in Waco, Texas (Malick’s hometown), tells the story of a boy, Jack (Hunter McCracken), the oldest of three sons, struggling against the rule of his authoritarian father (Brad Pitt); on a macro, the film takes on nothing less than the beginning of the universe. Meteors erupt, lava flows, dinosaurs roam the earth; the whispery voice-over of Jack’s beatific mother (Jessica Chastain) implores Help each other. Love everyone. Every leaf. Every ray of light. Forgive

Louder Than Words: Depraved, Baroque, and Mostly Offbeat The Tree of Life
IT’S A BIG TRAP to think that living in another time would be better. At its best, each generation collapses past, present, and future setences ... IT’S NOT THAT I DON’T LIKE WORDS, There’s sometimes no need for words ... The Mystery of Reading Backwards:

Don't nod
Dogma: I am God
Never odd or even
Too bad – I hid a boot
Rats live on no evil star
No trace; not one carton
Was it Eliot's toilet I saw?
Murder for a jar of red rum
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog!
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
A Toyota! Race fast... safe car: a Toyota
Straw? No, too stupid a fad; I put soot on warts
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Doc Note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod
No, it never propagates if I set a gap or prevention
Anne, I vote more cars race Rome to Vienna
Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus
Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak
Some men interpret nine memos
Campus Motto: Bottoms up, Mac
Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
Madam, in Eden I'm Adam
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
Ah, Satan sees Natasha
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Do geese see God?
God saw I was dog
Dennis sinned

• Words like LIVE and STRAW (which read EVIL and WARTS backwards) are not themselves palindromes but the "phrases" LIVE EVIL and STRAW WARTS are. "semiordnilap" [a term coined by Lewis Caroll, by reversing the word "palindrome"!CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER, said Alice, although I can’t remember exactly where [Understanding Dyslexia ; Herbert von Karajan conducts the first movement of Verdi's Requiem at La Scala in 1967. The soloists are Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciano Pavarotti, and Nicolai Ghiaurov Suggestions of madness, passion, obsession; Tens of thousands of opinionated academics around the world have become internet bloggers while universities are increasingly establishing blogging sites on their web pages. Blogging has moved from being a nerdish undergraduate pastime to an accepted communication medium within the academic community ]
• · · Kevin, like Malchkeon, is an avid believer in the power of the senses. New York magazine recently featured the perfume world's Willy Wonka, Christopher Brosius' quest to create the invisible scent. A perfume only cer tain people can smell, something that smells so good, you can't smell it at all... Scent From Heaven - Les Must De Cartier Vintage;The first Cartier fragrance that broke
with the traditions of perfumery. For the first time, the very green note of
galbanum in an Oriental, an incomparable freshness...like ice cubes thrown into a fiery concentrate. Les Must de Cartier
• · · · It took more than two years for Michaelangelo to carve his famed David, but now you can have a mini-masterpiece of your own in a matter of moments. At a kiosk in the heart of Barcelona, if you stand briefly, a machine will produce a statuette replica of your pose... A lasting memory ; We are known by the trail of 0’s and 1’s we leave in our wake. Who owns that information? Is sharing it – creating a data commons – a civic duty?. Carving Data
• · · · · Playing and Traveling Light; LIKE A BOOMERANG hurled across three-plus decades and carrying today’s viewer back with it to that fervent, hard-edged but oddly innocent downtown moment when the free-for-all 1970s (free because no one had or was willing to admit to having money) gave way to the more practical and materialist ’80s, Ericka Beckman’s Super 8 “Piaget Trilogy” (1978–81) arrives on the Anthology Film Archives screen
• · · · · · Is a diary supposed to be read by anyone other than its writer? ; I am about to start reading Elizabeth Gilbert's second best selling memoir: Committed. It is hot on the heels of Eat, Pray, Love. Two memoirs on the best seller list from the same author is amazing, I think. Blogging and memoir--is there synergy? ; My favorite memoirs; This blog contains essays, book reviews, interviews, tips, techniques, and writing prompts for anyone interested in reading and writing memoirs Revealing Death and Other Courageous Acts of Life